This "vlog" traces Jason Lee's interesting careers as skateboarder and actor, mostly by linking to videos of his early skateboarding days, clips from his movies, and - when I eventually get to 2005 - clips from My Name is Earl. If you want to review his career, start at the oldest post (dated October 15, 2008) and go up in order.
Warning: The language in some of these videos is not appropriate for children.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Amost Famous

In 2000, Jason Lee was in one of my favorite movies, Almost Famous.

It's an awesome semi-autobiographical Cameron Crowe movie about a teenage music journalist traveling with the not-quite-famous band Stillwater so he can do a feature story on them for Rolling Stone magazine.

Patrick Fugit is wonderful as William, the precocious yet innocent, wide-eyed teen. Billy Crudup plays Russell Hammond, the "incendiary" guitarist Willam looks up to. And Kate Hudson made quite a splash as Penny Lane, a band-aid (NOT a groupie) who falls for Russell while William falls for her. Lee plays Jeff Bebe, the lead singer who's tired of being upstaged by Russell.

Frances McDormand is a stand-out as William's overprotective mom, especially when she manages to intimidate an arrogant Russell - over the phone!

Seymour Phillip Hoffman is wonderful as real-life legendary rock journalist Lester Bangs, who helps William realize that neither of them will ever be cool, and that's the way it should be.

Can you tell how much I love this film?

For Almost Famous, you get several videos:

First, a trailer - and it's a good one.

Here's Stillwater performing the song "Fever Dog" on stage. Crowe's wife, Nancy Wilson of Heart, wrote the songs. The band isn't really performing the song, but they learned the moves from Peter Frampton.

Next, a nice scene where they all sing "Tiny Dancer" on their bus.

Last but not least, the plane scene. It's near the end, so if you haven't seen Almost Famous yet, you may want to hold out for the movie. If you have, or if you don't care, it's pretty funny and so worth watching.

One last note: The first thing you hear when the movie begins is the Chipmunks singing their Christmas song. A precursor to a much different role for Jason Lee.